At this time of the year, many of us are frantically trying to decide what gift to buy for loved ones, and then decide on the ultimate cop-out, the gift voucher. This is a system where you exchange your hard-earned money for a plastic card that enables the recipient to buy goods for the same value – with major restrictions. Firstly, they can be used at only specified stores and, secondly, if they are not used before a given date, they cease to have any value. Can you believe it, you exchange your money for the same value with a use by date.
I can see the thinking behind gift vouchers. You don’t know what to buy for someone, and you don’t want to give them money, because you don’t want it to go towards the next month’s groceries. Unfortunately, I find that receiving gift vouchers can be very stressful. I have so often heard people saying that they have to drive across town to spend a $50 gift voucher at some small boutique before it expires and the money is wasted. When they get to the shop, they often find that it does not stock anything that they want, so they end up buying anything to avoid wasting the money. Alternatively, it does have something that they would like, at double what it would cost at Kmart, so they end up adding their own funds to the purchase, and probably paying more for it.
As I write this, I have a $20 Mitre 10 gift voucher , which I won for footy tipping ( of all things!), that has expired. The reason that it has expired is that there is no Mitre 10 store within 100 Kms, and it would hardly have been worth it to make the long journey simply to spend $20. This is good news for the stores. Charging $20 for a worthless piece of plastic must be very good business for them.
The gift vouchers that really get my goat are those issued by the large shopping centres. People buy them thinking that they offer the recipient a large choice of stores in which they can redeem them. However, when they try to spend the vouchers, they will find that the very stores that have what they want – like Kmart and Big W – don’t accept them.
My advice to anyone thinking of giving a gift voucher to someone this Christmas is:
- Try to get a voucher that at least offers a discount. For example, gift vouchers I get through API offer a 5% discount. It’s not much, but it does make it more worth while.
- Make sure the voucher is for a store to which the recipient has easy access, and stocks items that they want and like.
- Consider giving a voucher for a reputable online store. This can make it a fun and, unfortunately, addictive experience for the recipient.
I still think, the best way to go is to put some cash into an envelope, with a note suggesting the way it should be spent.
